WHAT IS YOUR IMMIGRATION STORY?

I am a second generation of Vietnamese immigrant. So both my parents were born and raised there for the most part. But during the Vietnam War, those kind of factors and those dangers kind of cost them to immigrate to the US for both my mom and my dad. I guess I'll talk about my dad's side first. My grandpa was in the military and flew fighter jets. He was considered more of the higher ranking or higher class within Vietnam. So they were able to easily get on a plane and get a ticket to come to the US, so they didn't really have much trouble with that. I believe that they were first based in Michigan to kind of a host family. And then eventually my grandparents got jobs there, and raised my dad and his sister and his brother. He came when he was about eight, I want to say, so pretty young. They attended high school in America, lived their childhood there and then also attended UMISS and then he eventually met my mom at U Michigan.

Then on my mom's side, she immigrated when she was a little bit younger, I want to say four or five. Her family was farmers in Vietnam so they kind of raised coffee beans, I believe. So, they were on I guess relatively the poorer side of things. So, in order to escape, they had to get tickets and scrounge up money for their family to get on a boat and then travel to America and I haven't heard too much of the stories of this journey, but I do know that it wasn't the safest. There's a lot of tumultuous weather that cause kind of boat to sometimes be rocky and sent some people over, or it definitely caused sickness and people lacked food and water on this journey. Also, they stopped at different islands around Vietnam before they got to whichever country. So, they got to these islands, lived out a few months, hide in refuge as a refugee. And then eventually, I think they took a flight from, I can't remember which country, but they took a flight and landed in Michigan as well. And then in Michigan, they had kind of the same experience. I think as immigrants my mom's family had it harder assimilating into America as opposed to my dad's side.  I think my grandparents on my mom's side had harder times getting jobs and assimilating to the English language. Even now they don't really speak English very well. So, I can't imagine how it was before then. But eventually they were able to get have a relatively good childhood. I think there's a lot of traumatic factors that my mom experienced as well as an immigrant. I know her father was also in the military but just drafted, I believe. So, he had I think PTSD from that, and it caused some riffs in the family but eventually she went to U Michigan and met my dad. And then my dad went to medical school and then they all moved to, I believe Missouri, where they had my siblings and me.

I think because they lived in Michigan as Vietnamese immigrants, I feel like there must have been some overlaps within the community just because I know my mom's family would get together with the other Vietnamese immigrants and kind of had these community events. So, I assume that they must have collided some way or the other there.

WHAT DOES YOUR CURRENT JOURNEY LOOK LIKE?

Since we live in Missouri, I've been isolated from my other relatives and also where I live in St. Louis, it's still a big city, but there's not too much of specifically Vietnamese gatherings in general. We don't have an Asian town or Chinatown. So, we don't really have a physical space to meet there, which I know people are trying to work towards. So, I think as a second-generation immigrant that's growing up without many resources or education about my cultural heritage, it's kind of brought me to unique view. My parents don't speak Vietnamese in the household and really kind of the only cultural education that I get is through food or maybe in once-a-year celebrations of the lunar New Year. So, I think for me I've had to branch out to those communities and take my own initiative. And say Hey, I want to learn more about what it means to be Vietnamese American.

I think that aspect of my identity is something I've had to gather on my own and still to this day I really have no clue the kind of the childhood my parents lived. So, it's probably radically different than mine now since we're so assimilated it into this kind of American culture. But I think every day I'm trying to work towards gathering more of those resources so I can learn more about myself and my heritage. And I know my sister who's eight years older than me, she graduated college already and has her own life. She's been more exposed to those traditions since she was the first grandchild and also the oldest of my family, so they kind of treated her, I guess, I don't want to say, the prize child. But they definitely wanted to teach her more Vietnamese and introduce her to those things. So, as the middle child, I don't want to say I'm necessarily forgotten, but I think since it's been so long Those histories kind of died down and we're just getting more and more assimilated.

For context, I live in the area where it's mostly white affluent people, so I was never really exposed to Asian American culture outside of my own household. I think I kind of lived ignorant to how different I was to everyone else, but I think on the inside, I kind of knew that I looked different, my family ate different things. So, we were intrinsically different. But it wasn't until freshman year in high school that I started time being interested and curious in different things. For context, I'm a junior right now. I started reaching out to my school's Asian Student Association where there were amazing upperclassmen that organized events to discuss cultural events and cultural traditions and have food and be in a space where we can talk about our families and what it means to be Asian American especially in the community where it's so dominated by white perspectives. Also, I joined ASA, there's something called the Asian American civic scholars in my city. And it's just basically a nonprofit that is run by Asian American youth, so they do advocacy work and things like that in the community. They do mental health awareness, voter engagement, and collecting oral histories within Saint Louis. So, I applied to that, got in, and that kind of spiraled me into being more involved in the community. Personally, my work with that organization is since I'm a big music person, I play piano and violin. I started and led the inaugural Very Asian Concert in Saint, Louis.

So that was organizing different youth, musicians or dancers, and artists. We played a concert at the art museum, which raised money towards the Very Asian Foundation. So that's something I'm very proud of. And then additionally, I have worked with the Very Asian Foundation before and right now, I'm volunteering on their social media team. So, I help that national group to create posts, organize different media aspects, and I just do whatever work they want me to do. That's been really integral in me, kind of being exposed to Asian American nonprofits and advocacy within the community, and then that has extended me to being interested in graphic design and stuff like that. So, I worked with other nonprofits in Saint Louis. There's one called Asian Collective, which I made a single flyer for them but they kind of do work connecting the Asian American community. And I also worked with the OCA STL, which I know you guys were at. So that's kind of how I've got connected, but I did all the marketing stuff for their gala.

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